Brief Encounter
by Eosophobia-3
Summary: A Buffy/Angel/Being Human crossover... all the gangs meet, fight and face their demons  emotionally and physically ... plus some old friends return... enjoy
1. Welcome to Bristol

**Set in between Being Human series one and two and just after Buffy season 3 and Angel season 1… I know the dates don't match up but we'll just say it's the year 2000 :) **

**Chapter One – Holiday**

Buffy stepped from the train, her brown leather boots clinked on the concrete of the platform as she lightly lifted the three heavy suitcases out of her friend's drooping arms.

"I can't believe you booked us into a hotel in the wrong city", she pushed a strand of long blonde hair behind her ear as she lifted the final suitcase down.

"Well at least I got the right country", Xander, wearing his online-bought "I love London" t-shirt stepped off the train, followed by Oz and Willow.

"Yeah", Willow spoke up, "I'm sure Giles won't mind that we got the city wrong, as long as we're in England. And besides, this place looks pretty neat", she smiled broadly, always trying to make the best out of a bad situation.

"Yeah Buffy it'll be fun", Xander grinned towards his blonde friend and she smiled back, Xander's happiness was infectious.

"Okay, okay. So where are we anyway?"

Oz pointed to a large sign and spoke in his quiet yet intense way, "Bristol. We're in Bristol".

~ooOoo~

"Mitchell! Have you seen the tea bags?" George's voice rattled through the hall and up the stairs where Mitchell was lying face down on his bed. He turned over slightly, only to find Annie perched on the end of his bed like, well, a ghost.

"They're in the bottom cupboard!" Annie shouted back. She smiled as Mitchell sat up and offered him a warm cup of coffee, he smiled and took the steaming cup,

"Thanks".

Annie smiled, "No problemo. So what do you want to do today?"

Mitchell's brow creased, "Do?"

"Yes, do. It's a Sunday so we could do whatever we want. Oh! We could maybe go down to the park and have a picnic or we could stay in and watch DVD's or-"

"-I just want to rest Annie", Mitchell took a sip of the coffee and placed it on his beside table before continuing, "Sorry, I'm just knackered from working all week".

Annie shrugged and smiled, "Okay, that's fine. I'll just find something else to do. Maybe I'll go for a walk or something". She stood up and, before Mitchell could say another word, she _blinked_ out of the room.

~ooOoo~

Willow looked up at the large grey building and turned to Buffy, "Is this it? It looks a bit…"

"Seedy? Run-down? Abandoned?"

"Hey!" Xander retorted, "I'd say it looks retro… Yeah, retro. Or maybe vintage".

"I'd have to agree with Xander on this one", Oz smiled wanly, "it _could_ be cool".

Buffy raised an eyebrow but remained silent as the four of them walked up the steps into the reception area of the hotel. A woman in a suit the same shade as the building smiled and asked for their names before handing them the key to their room.

Buffy frowned, "Um, I think there's been a misunderstanding. We booked _two_ rooms, not one".

The woman typed something into her computer and smiled sweetly, "I'm sorry dear, it's all we have".

"Eurgh, great", Buffy sighed, "Well I suppose it'll have to do".

They made their way up the stairs (the lift was broken) to room 224 and Xander pushed open the door with only a little effort. They stepped inside the cramped room and inhaled the sickly sweet smell of damp and old potpourri. Two beds stood against the back wall: a double and a single, each with their fair share of stains on the covers.

"Nice. Instead of mints on our pillows we have typhoid. Or possibly syphilis", Buffy turned up her nose and dumped the suitcases on the floor.

"Well I think its cosy", Willow attempted a smile but it faded before it could properly appear. Oz tightened his grip on her hand and offered her a smile of his own.

"Just one problem", Xander looked flustered and slightly flushed, "Who's sleeping where?"

~ooOoo~

Annie walked slowly through the aisles of the supermarket; she didn't pick anything up out of fear that someone would see the object floating by itself. Today was one of those days when she felt invisible, _literally_. Some days she knew she could be seen by other people but other days it was only her supernatural friends that were able to lay eyes on her. Today was one of the latter.

She deliberated for a moment whether or not to scare a nearby teenager with a floating tin of carrots but, before she could make her move, a pretty auburn haired girl wearing bright red dungarees almost walked straight through her. This wouldn't have been out of the ordinary as most people did just that, but the red head stepped aside and apologised before moving on.

Annie stood in shock for a moment; perhaps she _could_ be seen by ordinary people today. She followed the girl down the cereal isle.

~ooOoo~

Willow apologised and walked passed the pretty girl in grey; something didn't feel quite right about the young girl but Willow shrugged away the feeling and caught up with the rest of the scoobies in the cereal isle.

"Can you believe we have to buy our own cereal?" Buffy scanned the boxes as she spoke, "And they don't even have Count Chocula!"

Xander's eyes widened, "They don't?"

Will stepped beside Oz, who was as calm and collected as ever, and knitted her fingers through his. He smiled and Willow relaxed slightly.

"Something wrong?" Oz asked, his brow creasing slightly.

Willow shook her head softly and whispered, "Nope. I just thought I saw… It's nothing".

"You sure?" He stroked her cheek gently and she closed her eyes for a brief moment.

"Mhmm", Willow nodded and diverted her attention to the cereal.

~ooOoo~

Annie stepped into the cereal isle and walked up to a tall guy with dark hair and an "I love London" t-shirt on. She waved her hand in his face but he remained transfixed on the cornflake box in his hands.

Buffy peered around Xander and raised her eyebrows at the curly-haired girl waving manically at him, "Um, Xand? Do you know her?"

Xander looked to where Buffy was pointing and scrunched up his face, "Who?"

Annie was suddenly extremely confused; she walked slowly towards the blonde girl, who stepped back slightly, and glared into her eyes, "You can see me?"

Buffy nodded.

"But he can't?" She gestured towards Xander.

"Apparently not".

"What?" Xander smiled awkwardly and looked towards Willow and Oz for guidance.

"You can't see her?" Willow asked.

"See _who_? Have you all taken some crazy British drugs while I wasn't looking?" Xander spun around a couple of times and then looked at Buffy who seemed to be having a conversation with herself.

Annie tugged on the ends of her grey cardigan for a moment and turned to face Willow and Oz, "And you two can see me too?" They nodded simultaneously, "But he can't?"

Buffy stepped towards the seemingly flustered girl with the coffee coloured skin and spoke quietly, "What _are_ you?"

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	2. The Decision

**Chapter Two – Friends**

Annie's hair bounced from side to side as she looked back and forth between Willow, Oz and Buffy. She turned back to face Xander, who was still totally confused,

"How come you three can see me and he can't?"

Buffy shrugged, "Your guess is as good as mine. Does this happen to you a lot? This whole 'invisible to some' thing?"

Annie tugged at her cardigan awkwardly, "Usually only, er, _special_ people can see me."

"Special?" Willow's eyebrows knitted together, "You mean like, supernatural?"

"What?" Annie plastered a fake smile across her face and waved a dismissive hand towards the redhead, "Don't be silly. Why would you say that?"

"You're not human," Oz spoke up, "You smell… different."

Annie's jaw dropped and her hands shifted to her hips, "What?"

Before Oz could answer Xander started to wave his hands above his head, "Excuse me? What is going on? Who smells?"

"I do not smell!" Annie's shoulders sagged and she looked at the strangers through narrowed eyes, "Who are you people?"

Buffy gave her best 'innocence face' and smiled, showing her teeth, "Us? No one. We're no one."

"We're tourists," Willow added, "Just normal, everyday tourists. Nothing special about us and certainly nothing supernatural…" she smiled half-heartedly.

Annie's eyebrows raised and she folded her arms across her chest, "Yeah right. And I'm still alive."

"Wait, what?" The Slayer's eyes widened, "You're dead? Are you a ghost?"

Xander shifted into a kung-fu pose (he assumed it was kung-fu, he'd seen Neo do it) and looked about desperately,

"There's a ghost? Where?" He grabbed a box of cereal from the shelf and started waving it about, "Did I get it?"

The ghost jabbed a thumb in Xander's direction, "Is he okay? He's not mentally challenged or anything?"

Buffy tried to hide her smile (and failed) and stepped closer to Annie,

"We're just on vacation, a break. Is there something we can do to help you, you know, cross over?"

"Ha!" Annie pushed a strand of curly hair behind her ear, "I'm fine, really. You should come and meet my friends though! They'd love to meet you."

Buffy nodded, "Sure," she turned to her friends, "I'm sure we can make time to meet some new people."

Willow exchanged a wary glance with Oz and Xander finally stopped waving the cereal about, having accidentally burst the box. He slyly put the broken box back on the shelf and turned to Buffy,

"So," he said, "We're going to meet some ghosts?"

Annie bit her bottom lip, "Well, not _ghosts_ exactly."

~ooOoo~

Mitchell tried desperately to scoop the washing powder back into the box; he'd tried to do his own washing and, being the useless man that he was, he'd managed to spill the white powder all over the kitchen counter. He swept it up with his hand and flicked it back into the half-empty box. Failing miserably to clean up the mess he decided to try another tactic: tools. He found a spatula in the cutlery drawer and started to use it as a makeshift brush, dragging the white powder across the counter and into the open box.

"What are you doing?"

Mitchell spun quickly to see George standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He looked anxious.

The vampire leaned against the counter, trying to hide the disaster area behind him, "George! Hey buddy!" He smiled a little too wide.

George cocked his head to one side to try and peer around his friend, "What's that behind you?"

"Nothing! I'm just doing the laundry."

"Is that the new spatula?"

Mitchell picked up the spatula, which was covered in the white powder. It smelt of lavender.

"No," Mitchell rubbed at the instrument with the sleeve of his shirt, "It's a different one."

George stepped forward, "That _is_ the new one! Bloody hell Mitchell, what's that all over it? Is it drugs?"

"Drugs?" Mitchell stopped rubbing and stared at George. Sometimes he couldn't believe his friend was so naïve, "Why would there be drugs on the spatula?"

George's arms flew up into the air and his voice jumped an octave, "I don't know!"

Mitchell sighed, "It's washing powder."

The werewolf pushed his glasses further up his nose, "Oh, because that makes so much more sense."

George took the spatula from his best friend and peered around him to look at the avalanche of powder behind him. He rolled his eyes,

"Great. Look at the state of this! I just cleaned up yesterday!"

Mitchell ran a hand through his dark hair, "I'll clean it up."

George pointed the spatula, wooden handle first, at Mitchell and the vampire raised his hands in surrender,

"Jesus, George! I'm not good with wooden objects being poked at my chest!"

The spatula-wielding werewolf stepped closer, "I want this kitchen looking spotless. Nina's coming over later."

Mitchell nodded and George stepped back. Suddenly Annie burst through the front door, along with four other people who looked a little shell shocked. The ghost dashed into the kitchen, beaming,

"Look! I found some friends!" Annie smiled and pointed towards the strangers milling around in the living room, "We're going to have so much fun!"

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	3. Glitch

**Chapter Three – Glitch**

The first thing Mitchell noticed about the group of strangers in his living room was that the blonde girl was hot. Like, _really _hot. She was sitting on the chair with her legs crossed and she kept fidgeting with her straw coloured hair. She smiled as Mitchell perched on the arm of the chair.

He cleared his throat and brushed the remains of the washing powder from his fingerless gloves,

"Hi, I'm Mitchell."

She smiled politely, "Buffy."

Mitchell raised his eyebrows, "Buffy? That's weir- Er, unusual."

Another polite smile.

_Smooth_, Mitchell thought to himself. He shuffled to a more comfortable position on the arm of the chair and sat in silence, feeling extremely awkward.

Willow and Oz were sitting on the sofa holding hands; the ghost seemed friendly enough but, if she was being honest, Willow thought that the Irish guy was a little creepy, although he was totally gorgeous. Xander sat next to Willow on the sofa; he kept looking at the scruffy guy chatting up Buffy, there was something odd about him that he couldn't quite place. His queries were interrupted by someone handing him a cup of steaming tea. He looked up to see a coffee-skinned girl with dark, curly hair all in grey. She handed him the tea and he smiled,

"Thanks."

Annie froze, the cup still in her grasp, "Can you see me?"

Xander smiled awkwardly and looked to Willow for confirmation that he wasn't going crazy, "Er, yeah," a light bulb in his head flicked on, "Are you the ghost?"

Annie finally let go of the cup of tea and smiled. She looked at Mitchell, who smiled back, and clapped her hands, "Yey! I'm see-able again!"

Buffy frowned, "So you can turn it on and off?"

"Not _exactly_," Annie shrugged, "It sort of drifts on and off," she looked at Buffy's empty hands, "Oh! You don't have tea!"

"I'm okay, thanks. I-"

"-I'll make you some!" Annie _blinked_ out of the room.

Xander sloshed tea over himself as the ghost vanished in front of his eyes and Willow's mouth popped open.

"Huh," Oz said.

~ooOoo~

A guy wearing glasses and a look of discontent shuffled into the living room and smiled awkwardly at the visitors. Xander tipped an invisible hat in his direction as George sat down on the spare chair.

"Good day ole' chap!" Xander chirped and then went very silent as everyone in the room just stared at him, "And I now realise no one actually talks like that…" a beat, "Hey, I'm Xander."

George pushed his glasses up his nose, "George," he cleared his throat, "So… Annie says you're all…" he cleared his throat again, "Supernatural fighters of some kind?"

Willow smiled, "Well, it's not official or anything. I mean, we don't get paid," she looked to Oz who smiled reassuringly, "We just find ourselves battling evil now and then. Demons and the like."

George's eyes widened, "De- Demons?"

Xander put down his unfinished cup of tea (it kind of tasted like the smell in his parent's basement) and leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees, "Yeah, you know, big beasties of various shapes and odours."

Willow watched as Oz kept glancing at George. Her boyfriend's dark eyebrows knitted together every now and then and it was making her uncomfortable. George obviously felt the same and so attempted to continue the conversation. He folded his arms tightly across his chest,

"So what er… What type of… You could see Annie when she was _invisible_?"

Buffy shifted in her seat, "Well, Willow's a wicked witch-"

"-Wicked witch?" Willow looked hurt, "I'm not wicked! I'm good, a good witch!"

Buffy smiled, "I meant wicked as in good, great," she started to fiddle with a button on her coat, "She's a _great_ witch."

Mitchell scoffed, "A witch? Like hocus pocus and stuff?"

The redhead's eyes narrowed and the cigarette that was tucked behind Mitchell's ear suddenly shot across the room and landed on the black and white tiles in the hallway.

"Bloody hell!" George yelped.

Willow blushed, "Kind of like that."

Mitchell smiled lopsidedly and turned to Buffy, who was still preoccupied with her coat button. He took a sip of tea from his own cup,

"And you? Are you a witch too?"

She shook her head and her blonde locks flicked the scent of jasmine towards the vampire. He inhaled deeply.

Buffy looked up at him, "Nope."

"What then?" Mitchell prodded.

"I'm The Slayer."

Mitchell almost choked on his tea and his eyes watered as he swallowed it the wrong way. George looked confused,

"Slayer? What's that?"

"I have this whole deal where I'm the Chosen One who has to kill the demons and forces of darkness blah blah blah," Buffy flicked her hand towards George, "It's all very wordy."

George rubbed the back of his neck; he could feel the sweat beading on his forehead, "F- forces of darkness?"

Buffy nodded, "Yeah. Like evil doers… Vampires for example."

Mitchell let out a high pitched giggle and stood up, "Excuse me, I have to be… somewhere with… someone… else."

The vampire left the room swiftly, leaving George to remain sitting with the girl who probably wanted to kill him and his friend. He stood up,

"I also have to be… elsewhere."

Buffy watched in utter confusion as the British guy flounced out of the room. _Maybe they're gay,_ she thought.

**Thanks for reading!**

**Please review!**

**More chapters soooooon :)**


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